How did you use media technologies in planning, research, construction and on evaluation?
Research and planning
Obviously using the internet when researching was our main tool to get the information we needed to find out when researching things such as trailer conventions and titles of trailers. When it came to presenting all our research Prezi came in very useful, it allowed us to present our research in an effective way, it also makes it more interesting for anyone reading our research. Prezi also saved a lot of time when it came to embedding the work into our blog as we didn't have to waste time uploading it to author stream first like we had to with PowerPoint's.
Click on the images to see a few of our research Prezis.
Word was another thing we used in the planning side of things as we used this when creating our pitch for the film, the shot list and shooting script, so we could have these easily accessible ready for when we started filming.
For research and planning we also had to use a camera in order to create our photo storyboards. By having these photo storyboards it allowed us to visualise our trailer more which helped us a lot when filming the individual clips as we could look at the images on the storyboard and see clearly what it was we wanted from that shot. As well as a camera we also used a printer so we could print out the images from the internet when creating our mood board.
Construction
For the construction of our trailer after using a camera and tripod to collect our footage and voice overs we used programmes such as Adobe After Effects, Premier Pro and Garage Band. YouTube and the internet were also useful when looking up tutorials on editing etc.
After effects was the main programme we used when creating some of the more complex parts of the editing in our trailer. We used after effects to create the thunderstorm as the main character comes out of her tent. before after effects this clip was just the main character walking out of the tent at night. After experimenting with a few filters we came across a rain filter and we altered the angle, speed and size of the raindrops to make it look as realistic as possible. We then added an overlay of a white flash to simulate the lightning and in Garage Band we used thunder sounds to add over the top of the footage audio. Other more complex pieces of editing we created was the clip of the trailer where the main character is opening her eyes for the first time in the real world, we had already created the blurred image coming into focus when filming with the camera but we wanted it to be more obvious that this was a point of view shot, so we followed a YouTube tutorial on how to create a blinking effect so for the audience it looks as though they are seeing through the characters eyes. One piece of editing we were particularly proud of was our split screen going into CCTV footage, this took us a lot of attempts in after effects to get it right but once we had finally got it how we wanted we were very pleased with the way it looked.
We also used after effects when creating titles and credits, so without the use of after effects our trailer would have consisted of very simple editing, titles and credits meaning we wouldn't have been able to create something enticing to the audience and in fitting with our genre.
Premier Pro was the programme we used to put all of our video footage and audio together and place in both audio and video transitions to make each clip transition smoothly into the next. We were also able to do small bits of editing with this such as changing the brightness and contrast of some of the footage we used this for the clips in the alternate world as well as adding a filter over them. We were also able to cut down the footage we had here and select the small sections we wanted.
Garage Band was where we created all the music and sound effects for our trailer. Music and sound effects are such an important part when trying to convey emotion and to make dramatic impacts for the audience and garage band allowed us to create music that fit our genre and footage perfectly as we were able to piece together different sounds from hundreds of choices, layering them altering the pitch and volume to make it exactly how we wanted.
Rough Cut:
Here you can compare our rough cut and our official trailer to see how much all of these programmes have helped us to edit our footage so that it creates an action/adventure postmodern trailer.
Official Trailer:
Click on the image to see more about how we made the titles for our trailer.
Click on the image to see more about how we made the music and sound effects for our trailer.
Evaluation
Obviously when making my evaluation Wix was the most important tool. The site builder has allowed me to create a whole website for my evaluation which is an interesting interactive way for people to view it. It allowed me to involve multi media into my evaluation as I was able to answer parts of the question through video, I could upload videos of me from YouTube answering parts of a question. This also made it more interesting for the person viewing as it could give them a break from reading and they can just listen instead. When using Wix it was very easy for me to add links to different web pages and to link in some of my previous work from our blog.
